Two stories below add more information on today's outage:

BLUE BELL, Pa. (BUSINESS WIRE) -

The stories that moved today over various news sources regarding the freezing of the Nasdaq composite index inaccurately reported that the problem was due to a mainframe computer problem.

For the record, the problem did not have anything to do with the computer provided by Unisys. The problem was in another part of the system.

Contact: Unisys, Blue Bell Brian Daly, 215/986-2214 or Jay Grossman, 215/986-6948

Link

http://news.excite.com/news/bw/000218/pa-unisys Nasdaq Indices Temporarily Disrupted Due To Problem With Communications Line at Data Center

Nasdaq Trading Unaffected by Suspension of Last Sale Price Information On Trader Workstations

Updated 4:25 PM ET February 18, 2000

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- The Nasdaq Stock Market(R) announced today that a communications line malfunctioned before noon today. Last sale price information on Nasdaq(R) securities -- with symbols beginning A through J -- were unable to be transmitted to Nasdaq Workstations II professional workstations.

Subsequently, Nasdaq halted the dissemination of current values of all indices -- except for the Nasdaq-100(R) that is calculated in a different system. During the approximate two-hour disruption, dissemination of last sale prices and other data by market data vendors was unaffected. Vendors distribute this information to the financial community as well as the investing and general public. Trading in Nasdaq securities continued throughout this period without interruption.

Nasdaq Workstation II computer terminals are used primarily by Market Makers, order entry firms, and investors who subscribe to this service.

Once the glitch in the communications line was isolated and resolved, the backlog of last sale information was processed. This took approximately 45 minutes. When the queue of last sale information was eliminated, Nasdaq again disseminated current index values.

During this entire period, the Unisys mainframe computer performed flawlessly and, in fact, continued to process and store last sale prices and index values. Once the problem with the communications line was fixed, the mainframe computer disseminated the data.

The Nasdaq Stock Market lists nearly 5,000 companies, has a larger dollar volume, and trades more shares per day than any other U.S. market. Nasdaq is a subsidiary of the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. (NASD(R)), the largest securities-industry, self-regulatory organization in the United States. For more information about Nasdaq, visit the Nasdaq Web site at www.nasdaq.com or the Nasdaq Newsroom(SM) at www.nasdaqnews.com.

Link

http://news.excite.com/news/pr/000218/dc-nasdaq-disruption

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 18, 2000

Answers

Sounds like a troubled marriage: the problem is in your component, not mine! My component is fixed. It just can't communicate with your component ....

-- Squirrel Hunter (nuts@upina.cellrelaytower), February 18, 2000.

According to the story,there was a communication line malfunction.Could this be a router problem with the phone company to their computer? There was a problem with GTE's router to my service provider this week.

-- Maggie (song bird@iwon.com), February 19, 2000.

It comes down to the sport of the new millenium: Finger Pointing.

Everytime sommething like this happens there a new round. I just wouldn't want to be the poor entity with no one else to point at. Since so many of these problems seem to involve networked systems, I'll bet that the major player in networking with the deepest pockets is the one that gets pointed at the most.

After all, the professional finger pointers are gonna be lawyers and there was that article about Cisco being the first Trillion dollar company. But not for long, I'll bet. All those lawyers didn't go to those "How to sue over Y2K issues" seminars for nothing.

Blood's in the water, look out for the sharks.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 19, 2000.